Saturday, October 29, 2016

Narcolepsy mnemonic

Hello!

This post is on narcolepsy.

For those who don't know, narcolepsy is characterized by:

Excessive daytime sleepiness (Associated with dozing off, or so-called "sleep attacks")
Hypnagogic hallucinations occurring when falling asleep (GOing to bed)
Hypnopompic hallucinations occurring when waking up (POMPing out of bed)
Cataplexy (emotionally triggered transient muscle weakness)
Sleep paralysis (Inability to move for one or two minutes immediately after awakening.) 

It is caused by decreased hypocretin / orexin production by the lateral hypothalmus.
Orexin, also called hypocretin, is a neuropeptide that regulates arousal, wakefulness, and appetite. 

Here's a mnemonic!


Fun fact: Orexin, from orexis, means "appetite" in Greek. Probably, anorexia is derived from no orexis! :D

That's all!
-IkaN

2 comments:

  1. Narcolepsy with cataplexy is caused by a lack of hypocretins, key brain chemicals that help sustain alertness and prevent REM sleep from occurring at the wrong times.

    Though much has been learned about narcolepsy with cataplexy, considerably less is known about the cause of narcolepsy without cataplexy. Most likely, it is caused by less severe injury to the hypocretin neurons, resulting in fewer and less severe symptoms.

    ReplyDelete

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